The purpose was to factcheck former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s statement, “We’ve had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police.”

Lee awarded Giuliani with 4 Pinnochios because “it turns out that none of Obama’s statements speak any ill of police officers or condone violence among those reacting to the deaths,” as if the president of the United States would say something openly hostile about the police, and openly encourage violence against them. What was she expecting to find? Obama saying, “Yo! it’s open season on the pigs”, or something?

No. Obama is much subtler than that.

Obama specializes in making butt-covering statements that he can point to when the SHTF. For instance: the “no acts of terror…” line at the end of the Rose garden speech regarding Benghazi on 9/12/2012. Yeah, he and his minions focused like a laser beam on the YouTube video for three weeks, but when the YouTube video narrative fell apart, he was able to go back to that throw-away line and say that he was calling it a terrorist attack (not a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Mohammed YouTube video) from the very beginning.

Hence, we get the responsible sounding (and freaking obvious) statements like the one he made on August 14following the initial looting and violence in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, “there is never an excuse for violence against police, or for those who would use this tragedy as a cover for vandalism or looting.”

And in the same breath: “There’s also no excuse for police to use excessive force against peaceful protests, or to throw protesters in jail for lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights. And here, in the United States of America, police should not be bullying or arresting journalists who are just trying to do their jobs and report to the American people on what they see on the ground. Put simply, we all need to hold ourselves to a high standard, particularly those of us in positions of authority.”

Hello Ms Lee? Police should not “use excessive force”, “should not be bullying” etc? That sounds like anti-police rhetoric coming from the Commander-in-Chief to me. Shouldn’t he have just told people to calm the hell down, respect the law and wait for justice to take its course so the police don’t have to look like they’re using “excessive force” as they try to control unruly crowds that are rioting or on the verge of rioting?

Rather than encourage people to stay home and trust in the justice system, he gave credence to the fact-challenged hysteria that followed the Michael Brown shooting.

When the Ferguson Grand Jury rendered their decision, he said that the protesters’ uninformed rage was “understandable.” It wasn’t. The facts of the case never supported their false anti-cop narrative. Our nation’s first black president had an opportunity to defend the police and the rule of law, and he didn’t. The best he could muster were obvious statements like “there’s never an excuse for violence.”

As Lee actually noted in her 4 Pinnochio indictment of Giuliani, Obama had some “pointed criticisms” about the police during a December interview on BET, but declared, ‘it’s a stretch to characterize that as “propaganda” for everyone to “hate the police':

“The vast majority of law enforcement officers are doing a really tough job, and most of them are doing it well and are trying to do the right thing. (Of course he has to say that.)

Here comes the “pointed” part.

But a combination of bad training, in some cases; a combination in some cases of departments that really are not trying to root out biases, or tolerate sloppy police work; a combination in some cases of folks just not knowing any better, and in a lot of cases, subconscious fear of folks who look different — all of this contributes to a national problem that’s going to require a national solution.”

Ugh. Did the president really have to make those insulting and baseless assertions? When the nation’s first black president says that “in a lot of cases” police have a “subconscious fear of folks who look different,” does that encourage blacks to trust the police or discourage them from trusting the police?

propaganda: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

Obama and Holder knew the facts early on. They knew about the surveillance video of the strong arm robbery (and suppressed it for as long as they could), they knew that eyewitnesses and forensic evidence refuted the hands up/don’t shoot narrative. Even so – when he met with racial agitator Al Sharpton in the White House the day after the midterm elections, he said, “stay on course.”

That is what Giuliani had in mind when he said, “He has had Al Sharpton to the White House 80-85 times. Often when he’s talking about police issues he has Al Sharpton sitting right next to him.. ..If you would like to have a poster boy for hating the police, it’s Al Sharpton. You make Al Sharpton a close advisor, you are going to turn the police in America against you.”

So Lee was back at it, today, with another factcheck- — on Giuliani’s assertion that Sharpton has been to the White House 80-85 times and is a “close advisor” to the president.

ORLY, we’ll see about that! harrumphed the WaPo Factchecker:

Giuliani said he took the high end of figures reported in Fox News, which ranged from 60 to 85 visits. The outlets reporting Sharpton’s visits used the White House visitors’ logs, so we looked at those figures. At first glance, there are 82 visits logged for Al Sharpton, Alfred Sharpton or Alfred C. Sharpton – all variations of Sharpton’s name.

After explaining that the the WH visitor database is “not a comprehensive list of all White House visits, and there are potentially thousands of visitors missing from it” Lee arrived at an exact number of 72 meetings anyway.

Of Sharpton’s 72 meetings:

One-on-one meetings: 5 (7 percent)

Meetings with staff members or senior advisers, with more than one guest: 20 (27 percent)

I suspect that Sharpton has become a political liability since the days White House officials were telling Politico “there’s a trust factor with The Rev from the Oval Office on down. He gets it, and he’s got credibility in the community that nobody else has got. There’s really no one else out there who does what he does.”

Now the lapdogs are striving hard to disassociate Sharpton from Obama.

Lee compared Sharpton’s visits to the White House to other Obama cronies who have visited the White House.

Giuliani connected Sharpton’s dozens of visits to the White House to what he described as Sharpton’s role as a “close adviser.” So we looked at the visitor log records of David Axelrod, an actual former White House senior adviser. Since Axelrod left the White House in January 2011, he had 28 official visits – and half of them were one-on-one meetings.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO who advises on labor policies, visited the White House 104 times since mid-2009, and 19 of the visits were one-on-one meetings. One-fifth of Trumka’s visits were meetings or events with 100 or more people. Matthew T. McGuire, former Citadel vice president and business liaison for the Commerce Department, visited the White House at least 250 times since 2011. Fifty of those visits were one-on-one meetings, and only 6 percent of his visits were meetings or events with 100+ people. Sharpton’s visits, in comparison, had far more ceremonial events and large-group gatherings.

***

We asked Sharpton if he had any meetings with the president after the deaths of Brown or Garner, or the assassination-style killings of two New York Police Department officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. The only conversation he had with the president about Ferguson was at a public round table with other civil rights leaders, Sharpton said.

Lee gave Guiliani one Pinnochio for his assertions about Sharpton.

… to cite this number (80-85 WH visits) to show that Sharpton is a “close adviser” is an exaggeration — which earns Giuliani One Pinocchio.

Eventually, Sharpton—often in consultation with Jarrett and Patrick Gaspard, the New York political operative who would go on to run the White House political office — carved out a unique role, defending Obama’s actions to black critics.

***

And the White House, as the crisis following Brown’s death seemed to flare out of control, worked extensively behind the scenes to maximize The Rev’s doing what he does, using him as both a source of information and a go-between.

Is it really an exaggeration to say that Al Sharpton is a close advisor to Obama on race relations? I don’t think so.

Like this:

Last Friday Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis made news with her allegation that CNBC “silenced” her for questioning Obamacare. Francis said executives chastised her for being “disrespectful to the office of the president” for noting that the ObamaCare numbers don’t add up. She made the point that the administration relied on people’s (read Democrats) “lack of economic understanding” to help pass ObamaCare and also the liberal media to help cover up the truth.”

On the Kelly File Monday night, she expanded on her experience at CNBC and commented on their disrespectful and glib response to her accusation.

Kelly read CNBC’s “nasty little shot” at Francis on the air: “That’s laughable, but we take notice because as the fastest growing network in primetime (Hm! Megyn sniffs) we’re always on the lookout for high quality comedy writers and actresses.”

(Melissa Francis was a child actress who is best known for her role as Cassandra (Cooper) Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie.)

“They don’t try to deny it – they just try to attack you personally,” Kelly declared.

“I guess,” Francis replied. “I thought their response was glib and sarcastic and they treat it like a joke and I don’t think it is a joke.”

Levin, remarking on the amount of government harassment she endured for having the temerity to investigate the Obama administration, said, “I’m sure that so many journalists are coming to your defense, right?”

Attkisson gave a little laugh and said that there are two answers to that: “the usual suspects which are defending the administration and powers that be at all costs and furthering their propaganda – no they have not come to my defense. But I have been warmly welcomed and supported – much of it behind the scenes – by a lot of journalists who have made similar observations – I mean this is now a consensus – it’s not going on a limb to say that this administration has treated journalists badly.” She added, “some of the anecdotes of other journalists are in the book – so I wasn’t exactly all by myself.”

Anyone who watched Obama’s post-shellacking press conference could see that most journalists are not only no longer on the Obama bandwagon – they have become positively hostile towards him. That is a refreshing change from the “slobbering love affair” we had to endure for the first few years.

The video is 22 minutes long – but worth listening in full. Attkisson has quite a story to tell…the government pushback to her investigations into Fast and Furious, Benghazi and the Regime’s surveillance of her computer are covered.

According to the former CBS reported, Senator Coburn sent a letter to Holder over a year ago asking questions about the government surveillance of journalists – specifically citing Attkisson’s case, but of course Holder hasn’t responded. She expressed hope that the new Republican majority in both houses will now wield more influence to do something about it.

“If the enforcer in the law is potentially involved in breaking the law, and if the media isn’t going to hold their feet to the fire, who is really going to be the one who does that?” Attkisson asked.

Levin noted that in the past – it didn’t matter what party you were in – if something like this was happening – there was a huge outcry among the politicians and media. “None of these things are happening!” Levin exclaimed.

“We have slowly come to expect this infringement on our rights,” Attkisson lamented. “And the idea that we may be surveillance and the government gets to call the shots and may withhold access to things we want if we don’t behave a certain way — I step back and look at it like an outsider and sometimes it seems so Russian.”

Our friend got knocked out from a cheap shot from behind. (His injury resulted in ten stitches, so it was really low.)

Why would anyone do this? Well, here’s a hint. The guy was on social media during this incident, tweeting, “about to get famous.”

When Willow saw all this happening she looked at the guy’s mom and said “get ahold of your son.”

But apparently the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, because his mom pushed Willow. A grown woman pushed my little sister.

By this point, I’d already gotten into the car. But when Willow ran to me crying, telling me that some lady had pushed her down, I got out of the car to go talk to her. Any big sister would do this.

Next to God, family is the most important thing to me.

***

But the evening that began so well took a turn for the worse when this guy decided he wanted to “get famous.”

After I got out of the car, I didn’t get far. I never even got to talk to his mom, because a guy in his late thirties or early forties got in my face. He was towering over me – probably at 6 foot something and over 200 pounds. He puffed his chest out and started yelling.

“You c-nt!” he looked right in my eyes and said. “Get the f-ck out of here, you slut!”

I was alarmed that things had gotten so bad so fast. But it got even worse when this guy started pushing me. He had his hands on me, pushing me down. That’s when I swung and hit his face.

Some would say I should’ve never retaliated in defense against him, but certainly he should never have pushed a girl. It didn’t phase him. He pushed me down to the ground and kept me there.

It was scary and awful. He held me down until someone got me out of the situation.

That’s it – that’s the story.

What makes this story all the more remarkable is the gross double standard and mind boggling hypocrisy at play. Costello has gone on the record herself to talk about an assault she once suffered at the hands of an abusive boyfriend.

National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke noted that Sullivan has heaped far less scorn on the sitting vice president whose son was recently revealed to have engaged in illegal activities which resulted in his discharge from the Navy – activities for which “he is unlikely to face so much as an interview with the police.” How’s that for inequality?

But Cooke focuses primarily on an even stronger point, one which was first observed by The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis: Where are the feminists rending garments over the callous way in which a physical assault on a woman by a man is being portrayed in the press?

“Anyone who is concerned about a ‘war on women’ — but not disturbed by this report — is clearly biased,” Lewis wrote.

Enter CNN anchor Carol Costello.

“I never wanted to become the poster child for anything, let alone domestic violence. But my blood is boiling, so when I say shut up, I’m venting at all those people out there who insist on blaming the victim,” Costello wrote with righteous fury directed at the National Football League (and the morning show Fox & Friends) over what she considered an insufficient level of concern for an incident involving Ray Rice striking his fiancé.

Costello goes on to reveal that she, too, was the victim of what sounds like a horrible assault by her college boyfriend. It was a brave thing for her to admit, and it made her commentary on the lax treatment Rice received from the NFL that much more powerful. But this admission also branded her take on the Palin assault as one which is inexplicably hypocritical.

Costello offered an apology without an explanation in a statement to Politico:

CNN’s Carol Costello apologized on Thursday for joking about a police recording of Bristol Palin.

“Over the past few days I have been roundly criticized for joking about a brawl involving the Palin family. In retrospect, I deserve such criticism and would like to apologize,” Costello said in a statement to POLITICO.

No ma’am. You deserve more than just criticism. You have disqualified yourself from holding a job at a still somewhat respected (debatable, I know) news organization. Folks on Twitter are demanding that she apologize on the air, which she’ll no doubt do, (if she hasn’t already) but after this disgraceful episode, there should be only one place left in the TV news business for her:

Like this:

The looters and rioters in Ferguson, Missouri have found a new ally in the murderous death cult ISIS.

ISIS militants and their supporters are using social media to egg the protesters on, encouraging them to embrace radical Islam and fight against the U.S. government.

On Monday night, during a CNN report, someone behind Jake Tapper held up an “ISIS is here” sign – shocking more than a few viewers.

How badly did the MSM drop the ball on this? We get a screenshot from someone watching the CNN broadcast at home, but nobody on the scene sticks a microphone in his face? Did no one in the media happen to notice the guy with the huge ISIS sign? (Those would be the genocidal maniacs who have been torturing, beheading, crucifying, raping and pillaging innocents in Syria and Iraq, for the past year or so.) Did anyone in the media bother to interview the ISIS loon? If not – why not? Why is it that out of dozens of reporters on the ground in Ferguson – we only have a still shot from the CNN broadcast – and no story? I’d like to know why some creep was out there holding an ISIS sign. And I would have liked to have seen him publicly shamed for it.

The Daily Mail reports that ISIS has been reaching out to the Ferguson mob primarily on Twitter.

The militants’ tweets denounce local officers for the way they have attempted to quell the violence, make reference to historic acts of police brutality, and even use the hashtag #FergusonUnderISIS in an attempt to get angry young men in the city to declare allegiance to the Islamist group.

***

One ISIS sympathiser calling himself Mujahid Miski, who claims to be from Minneapolis–Saint Paul but suggests he is now based in ‘the horn of Africa’, has led the campaign to encourage those taking part in the protests to embrace radical Islam.

In one message he tweets: ‘So how is democracy treating you guys? #FergusonUnderIS #Ferguson.’

He adds: ‘I thought u guys back in #Ferguson were supposed to be Free & that u had equal rights. I’d really like to know what changed? #FergusonUnderIS’.

Miski goes on to retweet dozens of messages by a Twitter user with the handle @AmreekiWitness, who claims to monitor and support the growth of radical Islam in the U.S..

Amreeki Witness’ messages focus on the treatment of black people in the U.S., praise Malcolm X for embracing Islam and urge angry young black men to take up the religion as it means the police ‘will fear you’.

In one message Amreeki Witness mocks the curfew police have imposed in Ferguson to bring an end to the disorder, saying: ‘We IS guys hate you for your freedom, eh? Just like that freedom uplifting curfew in #Ferguson? Wake up, or they’ll never let you outside.’

As the social media campaign began to take hold, with dozens of radical Islamists commenting on the Ferguson protests, Amreeki Witness tweeted: ‘May be time to organize the Muslims in America upon haqq and mobilize to #Ferguson. Defend the oppressed, start jihad here.’

The message attracted a large response, with one Islamist calling himself Amarka Al-Ahlam responding: ‘Preach, brother. We must organize brigades in preparation for the oncoming storm. #FergusonUnderIS #JihadinFerguson.’

The conservative Media Research Center is launching a video series this morning that mocks the hosts with 1-2 minute videos composed of embarrassing clips that MRC told Secrets would “underscore how clueless and biased they are.”

Their first victim subject is Chris Matthews, also known in the conservative blogosphere as “Tingles” because of the thrill that runs up his leg when his idol, Barack Obama speaks.

See if you can pick up on Tingles’ favorite, Alinsky-approved tactic for demonizing Republicans – it may be hard to detect because he’s is so subtle and nuanced in his language, as you know.

The campaign is a parody of MSNBC’s “Lean Forward” campaign. MRC is renaming it “Lean Over,” and will have a Twitter hashtag to match: #LeanOver.

Like this:

Judicial Watch, the same group that recently forced the White House to release those damning email exchanges related to the Benghazi attack, just published some newly uncovered communications regarding the IRS targeting of conservative groups. The emails, which were obtained in response to an October 2013 Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit filed after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013. Reading the emails, you can see why they stonewalled. They prove without a doubt that the handling of Tea Party applications was directed out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC. and that “extensive pressure” was put on the IRS by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations.

One key email string from July 2012 confirms that IRS Tea Party scrutiny was directed from Washington, DC. On July 6, 2010, Holly Paz (the former Director of the IRS Rulings and Agreements Division and current Manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance) asks IRS lawyer Steven Grodnitzky “to let Cindy and Sharon know how we have been handling Tea Party applications in the last few months.” Cindy Thomas is the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati and Sharon Camarillo was a Senior Manager in their Los Angeles office. Grodnitzky, a top lawyer in the Exempt Organization Technical unit (EOT) in Washington, DC, responds:

EOT is working the Tea party applications in coordination with Cincy. We are developing a few applications here in DC and providing copies of our development letters with the agent to use as examples in the development of their cases. Chip Hull [another lawyer in IRS headquarters] is working these cases in EOT and working with the agent in Cincy, so any communication should include him as well. Because the Tea party applications are the subject of an SCR [Sensitive Case Report], we cannot resolve any of the cases without coordinating with Rob.

The reference to Rob is believed to be Rob Choi, then-Director of Rulings and Agreements in IRS’s Washington, DC, headquarters.

Levin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ permanent subcommittee on investigations, wrote a March 30, 2012 letter to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman discussing the “urgency” of the issue of possible political activity by nonprofit applicants. Levin asked if the IRS was sending out additional information requests to applicant groups and citing an IRS rejection letter to a conservative group as an example of how the IRS should be conducting its business.

Bill Hemmer reported on the scandal Thursday morning on Fox News:

Senator Ted Cruz’s press release in full:

New Emails Escalate Need for Special Prosecutor

Sen Cruz: A special prosecutor with real independence should be appointed immediately

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today made the following statement regarding new emails between IRS employees and other government officials released by a watchdog group.

“After emails showed that Lois Lerner was communicating directly with the Department of Justice, I sent Attorney General Holder a letter asking him to reconsider his decision to not appoint a special prosecutor in the IRS targeting scandal. And now today more emails have surfaced, this time showing that IRS targeting of Tea Party groups was coordinated from Washington D.C.—contrary to the Administration’s initial story that this was all done by lower ranking IRS officials in Cincinnati.

“So we now know the Department of Justice was involved with the IRS targeting, and the Administration’s initial explanation about the targeting was false. This Administration has lost all credibility to investigate this partisan scandal, especially given that they have entrusted the investigation to be led by a major Democratic donor. A special prosecutor with real independence should be appointed immediately.”

Once again, I’m struck by how well Obama’s delaying tactics work to protect him from scandals that could have brought down his Administration. He and his team of paid liars long ago hit on the tactic of living from one news cycle to the next – a deliberate reversal of the old Washington wisdom that it’s better to dump everything at once (preferably in a literal dumpster out back of the White House, on a Friday afternoon, ideally before a holiday weekend) to avoid the corrosive drip-drip-drip of scandal. Old Washington hands thought it was dangerous to drag these things out and keep them in the news; better to muscle through a round of tough Sunday shows and get it over with, instead of seeing stories about “new revelations in Whatever-gate” on the front pages, week after week.

Coverage by the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) networks on their Wednesday evening and Thursday morning shows? 0 seconds.

***
While the networks refused to cover the new revelations in the IRS scandal they did devote a total of 11 minutes (ABC: 4 minutes,19 seconds; CBS: 4 minutes, 19 seconds; NBC: 4 minutes, 8 seconds) to defending Hillary Clinton from Republican attacks on their Wednesday evening and Thursday morning shows.